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It didn’t take long after Tommy Rees arrived at the University of Notre Dame for Chuck Martin to realize that the quarterback understood the game of football at a higher level than most.
“Probably about 30 seconds after you start a conversation with him,” Martin, now the head coach at Miami of Ohio, recalled to the Beacon Journal. “It wasn’t long. Guys like that you know, and you know you can talk. Sometimes in meetings you get caught talking to them at a higher level than other guys in the meeting, and then you kind of fill the cracks in with everybody else.”
Rees, who was promoted from tight ends coach to offensive coordinator by the Browns on Tuesday, arrived as a freshman at Notre Dame in 2010. At the time, Martin was also arriving in South Bend as part of new head coach Brian Kelly’s first coaching staff, only it was coaching the Fighting Irish’s defensive backs.
Their third year together at Notre Dame in 2012 was the first time they truly worked together, as Kelly moved Martin from coaching defensive backs to being the offensive coordinator. However, the conversations started well before that transition.
“I knew when I was coaching the secondary at Notre Dame, me and Tommy, he was a football junkie like me,” Martin said. “So even as a player when I first was at Notre Dame, I was on defense, and I already knew it. I knew it before I took over the offense that Tommy was incredibly smart and the game made sense to him. He understood a high level of football, and so it was easy for me when I moved to offense, I already knew how smart he was and the things we needed to be able to do with him.”
Notre Dame quarterback Tommy Rees (11) looks to the scoreboard before taking the field in a tie game against Navy, Nov. 2, 2013.
That’s why Martin finds Rees’ success and rise through the coaching ranks so unsurprising. The former…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/football-junkie-chuck-martin-not-103124319.html
Author : Akron Beacon Journal
Publish date : 2025-01-15 10:31:00
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